In preparation for the 2025 Christmas holiday period, we would like to clarify our opening times and the effects of holidays on apprentices’ deadlines and submission dates.
1st for EPA will be only be closed on bank holidays, which are:
- Thursday 25th December 2025
- Friday 26th December 2025
- Thursday 1st January 2026
This means our office will be open as normal and we’ll be taking assessment bookings between Monday 29th to Wednesday 31st December.
Effect on our SLA Timescales
All pending gateway and project approvals, reasonable adjustment requests and statements of results scheduled for completion on a recognised English bank holiday will be processed in line with our normal SLAs and issued on the next working day.
Effect on Submission Deadlines
Any EPA project return dates that are scheduled to fall on any recognised English bank holiday must be submitted on the next available working day as per the normal process.
Any apprentice’s EPA period that includes any recognised English bank holiday will have the EPA period increased by the number of recognised English bank holidays that fall within it, as is standard company practice.
For example, for an apprentice with an EPA start date of 23rd December 2025 who has 4 weeks to complete their EPA project, will have 3 additional days added to their project return date to take into account the bank holidays on 25th, 26th December 2025 and 1st January 2026.
Annual leave and office closure
Any apprentice annual leave or employer office closure that takes place over the Christmas holiday period that is in addition to the recognised English bank holidays will not be taken into account when calculating EPA periods or submission deadlines. This is also normal practice for all apprentices that have EPA periods that fall outside of the Christmas holiday period.
We therefore advise training providers and apprentices to plan gateway dates carefully, ensuring the relevant deadlines can be met.
Queries
This article is meant to be used as a guide; please refer to the relevant Resource Pack (or Toolkit) for our official guidance.
For any queries, training providers can reach out to their Partnerships contact.
Apprentices should discuss queries with their training provider first, who will reach out to us if needed.
